This presentation reflects collaboration and leadership, focusing on organizational function, teamwork, and leading people. It reflects on various topics, including the interdisciplinary collaboration I have experienced, its unsuccessful and successful ways of achieving the desired results, and how substandard collaboration can lead to inefficient financial and human resources management. It also focuses on the most effective leadership strategies that can enhance an interdisciplinary team’s ability to fulfill objectives and the most efficient interdisciplinary collaboration techniques to help the team work together and achieve its objectives.
Reflection of an Interdisciplinary Collaboration Experience
During my rotation as a nurse in the emergency department, an accident patient was brought in by well-wishers who did not know anything about the patient. I was lucky to be part of an interdisciplinary team working to save the patient’s life. The qualified nurse I was working under instructed me to call for help, and all the doctors from different specialties came hurriedly and with no time; each of them was busy assisting the patient. The phlebotomist inserted a line as we monitored the vitals. The surgeon was suturing the bleeding sites and splitting all the fractures while the renal doctor prepared the patient’s fluids to avoid going into kidney failure. Samples were drawn and taken for cross-match, and the blood was ready for transfusion as soon as possible. The physician recommended that the patient be in the ICU, but after calling the ICU nurse, she reported that the beds were full. The patient was placed in the high-dependency unit on oxygen and close monitoring, awaiting a bed in the ICU. The team succeeded in saving the patient from death by stopping bleeding, preventing complications, and close monitoring.
Ways Poor Collaboration Can Result In Inefficient Management of Human and Financial Resources
Lack of teamwork in a healthcare setting leads to negative care outcomes, thus putting the patients in danger. Poor collaboration spreads negative impacts such as conflict, inadequate training, and lack of recognition in all the organization’s departments. Poor collaboration in a care setup leads to ineffective communication, increased distrust, inability to implement the knowledge, and faction creation effectively, thus increasing medical mistakes and reducing care quality (Guta et al., 2023). Human factors such as poor collaboration led to 96% of preventable medical errors in England in 2017-2018 (Guta et al., 2023). Poor collaboration has also been linked with underperformance in most healthcare systems. It increases communication failure, particularly during shift changes, and may lead to a patient receiving the wrong drugs. An environment with poor collaboration leads to decreased productivity, reducing the organizations’ revenues and growth (Castañer & Oliveira, 2020). Poor collaboration encourages employees to reject ideas, keep information for themselves, and dispute everyone in the organization.
Best-Practice Leadership Strategies That Would Improve an Interdisciplinary Team’s Ability to Achieve Its Goals
A clear vision of the team’s future inspires the members to achieve long-term goals. The ideal long-term or short-term goals should be measurable, attainable, and clearly defined for more accessible communication of the vision (Rahmadani et al., 2020). A clear vision engages the members in long-term thinking. A leader should articulate the vision so that the members can feel a commitment towards the vision, thus encouraging meaningful productivity and contribution. An effective leader explains the vision concisely to ensure all members understand what is expected. Lastly, maintaining integrity and establishing good working morale develops a foundation that employees can emulate (Rahmadani et al., 2020). A leader should embody the organization’s values.
Best-Practice Interdisciplinary Collaboration Strategies that can help a Team achieve its Goals and Work Together More Effectively
Open communication is a strategy that would help a team achieve its goals by bringing down the walls between the departments and employees, thus fostering a collaborative workspace. Open communication allows employees to air out their ideas and uphold new ideas without fear of failing. Failed communication affects the organization negatively by limiting potential and goal realization (McLaney et al., 2022). Open communication involves listening and respecting everyone’s opinions and ideas, openness to new views, and deliberation willingness. Rewarding and recognizing a group’s accomplishment is an effective strategy to encourage and motivate the team to achieve their objectives. Interdisciplinary teams learn a lot from their experiences and history; thus, team reflection is performance and process-oriented (McLaney et al., 2022). Reflection helps members identify areas that need improvement and optimize their efforts once they are doing well. Lastly, role clarification is a crucial strategy for an effective interdisciplinary team. Role clarification ensures that each member comprehends their scope, expertise, and role (McLaney et al., 2022). A member can explore interdependencies in their roles and maximize their scope while considering redundancies and repetition.
Conclusion
Teamwork is an essential activity in all organizations, including medical systems. Interdisciplinary collaboration must be emphasized to offer quality services to patients, improve their quality of life, and reduce medical errors. Leaders should allow team members to communicate openly by sharing their ideas and recognize and reward them to motivate them to achieve the team’s goals.
References
Castañer, X., & Oliveira, N. (2020). Collaboration, coordination, and cooperation among organizations: Establishing the distinctive meanings of these terms through a systematic literature review. Journal of Management, 46(6), 965-1001. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206320901565
McLaney, E., Morassaei, S., Hughes, L., Davies, R., Campbell, M., & Di Prospero, L. (2022, March). A framework for interprofessional team collaboration in a hospital setting: Advancing team competencies and behaviors. In Healthcare Management Forum (Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 112-117). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/08404704211063584
Rahmadani, V. G., Schaufeli, W. B., Stouten, J., Zhang, Z., & Zulkarnain, Z. (2020). Engaging leadership and its implication for work engagement and job outcomes at the individual and team level: A multi-level longitudinal study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(3), 776. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/776#
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